Last Saturday, my friend gave me the business. She said she wanted us to go to San Diego on a trip. I said “Save your money”. But after hearing this she got very indignant with me. She was she was expecting me to pay for the whole trip myself because she is on disability and has hardly any money. I could hardly believe what she was saying to me but the thing is, I can’t come out and say; “No”. I’ve never been able to say that in my life (because of living with my father who was a malignant narcissist). But this was too much. I got very tongue tied and tried to wangle my way out of it by saying that, though she wasn’t trying to use me, I had a hard time even smelling the idea of being used. What a crock! I thought; “If I go for this, I’m going to get a resentment as big as a house”. I was determined not to do it. She tried to manipulate me through humiliation saying that street people would give the shirts off their backs to help someone else out. She said that she expected me to be ‘better’ after 38 years sober. I squeaked out a response saying; “Your expectations of me are too high”.

I was so extremely freaked out by the whole business that I completely lost my bearings. I lost my Costco card at the gas station; something I’ve never done before with any of my credit cards. My driving was scary and when I went to drop her off, I ran over the curb. She chocked it up to the bipolar disorder (I’m actually schizo-effective) and I didn’t disagree with her. I just couldn’t let the same conversation come up again.

Today was an ‘interesting’ day. I just got blown over by an AA ‘friend’, a lively girl named Terrena. I had only been befriending her for a month or so when something came up. She was living in a motel situation and was trying to get a studio apartment. But – low and behold – she was short $275. You can guess the rest I think.

Well I forked up the money for her to get it.

Stupid me. I fell for the oldest trick in the book. She came off as a friend but all she turned out to be was a user. Today we were supposed to get together. She had just gotten paid and told me that when we hooked up, she’d pay me $100 of the $275. Then a funny thing happened. Right in the middle of our phone conversation we got disconnected. But the truth is I think she hung up on me. I tried to call her back about 5 – 6 times but no answer. She didn’t call me back either. She just disappeared of the face of the earth. I was supposed to pick her up for an AA meeting that we always went to. I went to her apartment but she wasn’t there or she didn’t answer the door . It’s all so frustrating!

Did she die? Have a heart attack right in he middle of our phone conversation? That’s a possibility – but I seriously doubt it. She’s only in her mid 50’s.

So there. She’s gone. A stupid AA user. As a general rule, AA people – especially those that frequent Alano clubs – are pathetic and abusive. I don’t have any AA friends. The only reason we were ‘friends’ was because my husband foisted her on me because she was new to the AA scene (she had however 10 years sober). She told him she was bipolar (I’m schizo-effective) so he threw her my way. I swear, if he tries to hook me up with anyone else in AA, I’ll sock him one.

I went to my usual Al Anon meeting after the AA meeting. The topic was Step 4 (made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves). I got to sit next to my sponsor Cheryl which was nice after the episode with Terrena. One of the women shared about the slogan; “You didn’t cause it. You can’t control it. And you can’t cure it.” This is about the alcoholic. But it hit me in the heart about my senior that I have been visiting for the past year. We hit a snag and she went on a starvation kick – I think to get back at me. I have been feeling so guilty about that and I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling until the woman shared this slogan. Something broke inside. I fully and finally accepted this slogan as if it applied to her crazy behavior even though she doesn’t have alcoholism. Her reaction to me was HER CHOICE! and not because of what I had done. All I did was tell her I couldn’t come see her that week. Now she’s in the hospital dying from starvation. The last time I saw her, she looked like a skeleton with skin on. They put her on palliative care. I stopped dropping by because I couldn’t bear to see her die like that. She’s 97 and in perfect health, and I wondered what she was going to die of. Now I know. Death by Stubbornness!!

I was talking to an AA new-comer the other day and, as I was talking to her, this came to the forefront of my mind.

I have a ‘funny spot’ in my brain.

In my brain there is a ‘funny spot’ that only certain chemicals and stuff will hit, and alcohol is just one of these. When I drank it, it did something to a spot in my brain that made all my troubles magically go away. When I drank it, somehow I felt lifted up out of the muck of my life.

I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.